Religious Studies

The contributors to this volume examine the identity and roles of presbyters in early Christianity in the 1st and 2nd centuries. They explore biblical, Jewish, and Greco-Roman contexts and trace the development from age-related authority to formal leadership.

Onyekachi Ugwu analyzes the pericope of the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John through narrative and socio-historical criticism. He argues that, despite its contested transmission, it can be read as authentically Johannine - foreshadowing Jesus' own trial and his final victory over darkness.

The volume investigates how human existence is shaped by the tensions between activity and passivity, autonomy and dependence, immanence and transcendence. The central theme is the problematic nature of subjectivity - not as a stable foundation, but as a dynamic, self-relating process marked by vulnerability, temporality, and relationality.

Philo's Therapeutae is the best exemplum for what a Hellenistic Jewish contemplative life would look like in first century CE Alexandria. In constructing the contemplative life of the Therapeutae , Philo brings together various insights from Hellenistic philosophy and religion.